Protection
by LucyToo
Summary: From a prompt: five times that Tony and Bruce defended each other, and the one time they didn't have to. Slash.


_AN: I got the prompt from Avengerkink on LJ. First time attempting any Avenger voices besides Tony's, so forgive any mistakes. I also tried to pick situations that were grey areas, especially the first two, because I think it's more interesting that way. You could argue either way in those cases, I think. But that's how most situations are in real life. _

* * *

ONE

The first time Steve notices the looks changing between Bruce and Tony, it's a result of his own actions.

Steve is a leader, a soldier, a man put in charge of an eclectic and powerful group of eccentric personalities, and he tries to handle his position as responsibly a possible. He makes allowances for Thor's long absences back to his home world, and Natasha's pathological secrecy. When Clint goes off on his own during fights because he thinks he'll be better in a different position, Steve shuts his mouth and tries to trust him. When Bruce wastes time arguing every single time that they ask for the Hulk to join them in a fight, Steve tries to be patient. When Tony grandstands or acts too fast or too publicly, Steve grits his teeth and accepts that he will always have a lust for the spotlight, and that doesn't mean he's not still a soldier like the rest of them.

But when the habits of his team get dangerous, he has to speak. Someone has to speak, and Steve is the unofficial head, the one who puts duty before all. The one cursed with outdated morals that don't seem to keep up with the world in the 21st century.

When he berates Tony about his drinking it isn't because he's a prude. It's because Tony showing up to meetings flushed and speaking too loudly is harmful for the entire team. A sign that anyone doesn't take this thing seriously enough to stay sober for it is a morale killer, and Steve is the one who has to play bad guy in situations like that.

He has to do it, and in the end he has to do it in front of the others because Tony refuses to let Steve pull him aside to talk about it quietly.

"This has to stop," Steve says finally, loud and sharp and finally getting Tony's complete attention.

Tony's eyebrows rise and he gets that 'oh, let's go toe to toe, Fourth of July' look on his face that he always gets when Steve asserts himself.

Steve is aware of conversations around the table dying down and focus going to him and Tony, but he doesn't let it stop him. "You can barely stand up straight, Tony. What's the use of even meeting if you're in a state like this? Will you even remember what we go over an hour after we're done?"

Tony's mouth slides into his familiar smirk and he opens his mouth to answer, no doubt some drawled statement about the way Steve's ass is clenched too tight.

Steve's in no mood. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear anything from you until you sober up enough to act like any of this means anything to you."

"Hey!"

The protest catches him off guard, and he looks over to see Bruce of all people rising to his feet. "Doctor Banner, please stay-"

"No." Bruce looks from Steve to Tony and back to Steve. "Play fair, Captain, and then I'll stay out of it. Tony's a grown man who's more than proven that he's as serious about this team as you are. He also runs a billion-dollar company and comes up with a thousand new ideas a day. He knows his own mind and his own limits. He wouldn't come here impaired, and you should know that by now."

Steve's lips flatten, but he has to face Bruce because this is now an open challenge. "Doctor. You of all people understand the dangers of alcohol on judgment. I'm not being irrational to insist that when we gather to talk strategy we at least be sober."

Clint laughs, maybe as an attempt to break the tension, maybe because he really thinks it's funny. It's hard to tell with him. "Bruce? What the hell does he know about alcohol, the guy wouldn't drink a toast if his mouth was on fire."

"I hope not, alcohol's flammable. It'd kind of make things worse."

Steve ignores Clint and Natasha, regarding Bruce. "I've read your file, Doctor. You understand, you must."

"His file?" That's Tony, his voice quiet and confused.

Bruce's face has lost a little color, and his eyes are on Tony as if there's something about this that he doesn't want Tony overhearing. But he looks back at Steve fast. "I understand a lot of things, Cap. I understand that we all have our ways of coping with this weird universe we're suddenly living in. I know what it's like to need some space between you and the insanity." His eyes went back to Tony for a moment. "Tony has some pretty high tolerance levels, and he knows not to go beyond them. And he'll remember ever word of this meeting tomorrow. You've got to trust him, Cap."

Steve shakes his head, but doesn't argue. He doesn't think it's an issue of trust, it's an issue of respect. But then that's an ongoing issue between he and Tony, the question of respect and how it ought to be expressed. Steve is outdated and archaic, but alcohol is hardly a new invention. He knew plenty of soldiers who drowned their sorrows in a bottle. He knew plenty who went into battle sick and slow because of it, who died from it.

But he's willing to drop the issue for now, at least in public. At least until he can talk to Tony – if Tony will let him – about his attitude towards the drinking.

When he gives in and turns to Tony to ask to speak to him about it later, that's when he notices the expression on Tony's face. He's still looking at Bruce, a question in his eyes, an unhappiness tugging at his mouth that isn't normal for Tony.

After the rather awkward meeting that follows, Tony approaches Steve and asks for SHIELD's file on Bruce. Steve is surprised he hasn't simply hacked or slashed into it or whatever it is he does with his computer, but he sends a copy to Tony's email.

He makes sure the report about Bruce's parents is at the front of the file.

And the whole point becomes moot, because after that Tony still occasionally shows up with liquor on his breath, but never as badly. And even those occurrences grow fewer and fewer, until Steve stops remembering to be worried about it.

* * *

TWO

"I think it's a good idea," Natasha offers as the debate goes on and on around her.

Bruce throws up his hands, looking exasperated by yet another voice against him. "It's _pointless_," he insists. "You can't train a thing that has no conscious thought or memory. Nothing you do in those training exercises will ever get through to the...to him. He's a side effect of radiation poisoning, not some split personality who has feelings and memories all his own, okay?"

Natasha shrugs, calm, regarding Bruce because the others are still going around debating the merits of finding a training space that could contain a Hulk.

"And what about for us?" she asks him.

Bruce hesitates, frowning. "What about you?"

"Even if the Hulk doesn't hold on to memories enough to make training worthwhile for him, we do. And being exposed to the Hulk more often would be good for us. It will make us more comfortable fighting beside him."

Natasha is gifted at reading people. Of course she is, she survives by reading people. She knows what thoughts can put certain looks in people's eyes. She knows when they lie, when they bluff, when they're scared and hiding it or confident and using fear to try to put people off guard.

She recognizes that the fear in Bruce's eyes comes from his not having an immediate argument for her words. She knows the fear is entirely towards the Hulk himself, that Bruce is as scared of the creature inside of him as...

...as she is.

Fear is a hell of a hard thing to admit, especially for Natasha. She wears fear as a mask, always has, to make people talk too much and dismiss her as no threat. Feeling it for real, uncontrollable and intense, shakes her. That more than anything makes her want to see this Hulk, spar with him, adjust to a world where the beast is possible and so lessen her own fear of it.

She regards him, understanding his fear but not allowing him to give in to it. "We need it, Bruce. We have to understand who – or what – we're fighting alongside. We train so we can know each other, and we need to know you, or _him, _just as much as anyone else on the team."

"Oh, that's such bullshit."

She isn't surprised when Tony argues with her; the man likes being contrary for the sheer fun of it, more than anyone else she's ever met. When she turns her unimpressed look to him, though, she's inwardly startled at the heat in his eyes, the real anger there.

Tony folds his arms across his chest and stares at her. "You have no idea what you're messing with here, do you?" His eyes go from Natasha to Steve and Thor, who started the debate about training with the Hulk in the first place. "You're not talking about Bruce throwing on a suit. You're talking about a complete physical transformation and mental separation. You've seen how he is after he changes back – it's exhausting and it's painful, and you want him to put himself through that when it's not necessary because it'll make you more _comfortable_?"

Natasha laughs, short and sharp. "Excuse me, you were the one who was on Bruce's case from the beginning about bringing his inner Hulk out to play, and encouraging him to be less scared of it."

"Yeah, well, that changed," Tony replied. "I understand things better now. And you all better start understanding too. Because if you don't get the first thing about what the Hulk actually is, then watching him roar up close and personal ain't gonna do squat for team-building."

"So tell us," she answers evenly.

Her eyes go from Tony to Bruce, and for a moment she catches a glimpse of something in Bruce's eyes as he looks at Tony. Gratitude, and something deeper and warmer underneath it.

She clears her throat, drawing Bruce's eyes and watching that warm look fade away. "So tell us," she says again. "What does Tony know that we don't? Why is this such a horrible idea for you?"

Bruce looks around as if for an escape, but Steve and Thor and Clint are all watching him and waiting. He looks over at Tony for a moment, then back to Natasha.

He speaks, quiet and haltingly, about the transformation. The way his brain catches fire in his mind and he feels every bone snap and every muscle shift and reshape into something different. How he sees things in cloudy, distance hallucination-vision, how he moves and can't control it, breaks things and hurts people and can't stop it. How his body becomes a foreign thing that he can barely feel, and then in the end how he gets slammed back into the battered shell that's left when the Hulk leaves him. How he is never harmed, never scarred, but the pain and the powerlessness lingers in his head. How it takes him days to be able to trust his own body again after each occurrence.

Natasha listens, they all listen, the room silent and still around them as Bruce talks more than any of them (except maybe Tony) have ever heard him talk at one time.

When he's done he excuses himself, pushing away from the chair he's in and retreating from the room. His hands are shaking. She's pretty sure hers are, too.

Tony stands up once he's gone and stares holes into Natasha, and then Steve. "It's not a game, and he's not a toy. It took me a little while to learn that, and now you know it. This better be the end of this conversation." He goes after Bruce without waiting for a response.

Natasha studies the table in front of her, pretty sure it's the end of her part in the conversation if nothing else.

As usual it's Clint who breaks the silence. "So are those two fucking, or what? What's the deal there?"

Her mouth quirks up and she shoots him an amused look as Steve blusters out an incoherent, startled response. She just shrugs. If they're not fucking it's only a matter of time.

* * *

THREE

Pepper is the world's foremost expert on the care and feeding of Tony Stark. There are things about him that need to be communicated to anyone who's got a vested interest in his well-being. There are signs people need to be taught, signals to ignore and to pay close attention to. Habits to encourage, habits that need to be broken at any cost.

She tries to teach people these things accordingly, depending on their relationship with Tony and their need to know. She teaches his endless string of assistants about which commands are serious and which are jokes. She teaches his new investors as they come in just what he means when he says and does certain things during meetings.

She knows that soon enough she will be pulling aside whichever woman ends up taking her place in his bed, and teaching her some of the more intimate secrets to dealing with Tony.

The Avengers, she drops hints and clues with them, but understands that a team that fights together needs to learn each other's habits the hard way in order to be effective. She stays out of that side of it, really. She manages his business, and to a point his life. But she has little to do with Iron Man, and she prefers it that way.

Bruce has benefited more from her experience than any of the others in that rather ungentle little ensemble. But then Bruce has personal rooms at the Tower, and he and Tony have taken to working together for hours, days, weeks at a time.

It's endearing, really. Rhodey is a good friend to Tony, despite their various enormous differences in life philosophies. But Tony needs, and now has, a friend who is actually on his level when it comes to the things he holds important. He and Bruce work endless hours together, share jokes that consist entirely of words that Pepper doesn't know the meanings of. They finish each other's sentences, hand each other tools at just the right random times despite having worked in utter silence.

Tony has plenty of people to impress, to tease. He needs someone to talk to, and Bruce has become that.

So Pepper talks to Bruce more and more, shares more of her secrets to dealing with Tony. Some of them he's figured out, some of them he is endlessly grateful for: when she teaches him the trick to manipulating Tony into turning off Pantera in the lab, he even sends her flowers.

When Tony gets sick the first time, Pepper sighs to herself and constructs a mental list of the things Bruce will need to know about this aspect of him.

Tony Stark is a gigantic baby. That's lesson one. He can't be trusted about his own health, not for a second. When he's healthy he pretends he's unstoppable, and when he gives in to sickness every complaint is a mortal wound dragging him straight to the grave. He affects hoarseness and chills and pains everywhere even when his doctors insist he has nothing but a sore throat. He loves to be coddled, and he has to be reeled in or he'll become insufferable.

When she first gets the message at her office downstairs – _Tony ill, cancel meetings – _she sighs to herself and smiles to think that with her position and Bruce's proximity to Tony she actually has a reason to guiltlessly hand the reins of a sick Tony over to someone else.

She can't get up to the top floors until that afternoon, and by then she's composed a full mental list of need-to-knows about a sick Tony.

She goes to the lab first, hoping to find Bruce on his own, but the place is dark and utterly silent, a deserted space. Too late, then, and she should have known. Tony has had hours to suck Bruce into his vacuum of self-pity.

She sighs and gets back on the elevator to go up to Tony's rooms.

When she convinces JARVIS to let her in finally, she makes her way back to Tony's bedroom, smiling indulgently at the drawn blinds and the hushed, still air. Every cold puts the man on his death-bed, honestly.

"Tony?" She knocks on the door and moves into his bedroom.

He's in bed, of course. Beside him on the wide mattress there's a tray holding still-steaming soup and an almost empty glass of orange juice. Kleenex on the table, a bottle of thick red cold medicine.

Tony Stark practically built himself a new heart, but when he catches a cold he loves over the counter Americana.

He peers over at her, his eyes bright in the dimness of the room. "Come to say goodbye?" he croaks out.

She manages to not roll her eyes, amusement curving her mouth as she moves in. "There are a few things I could use your signature on if you're not going to last the night."

He groans. "I knew you'd be all set to take over."

She smiles, because of course she is. That's her job. "Where's-"

The door behind her opens as she glances back as Bruce hurries in, a glass in his hand. He flashes her a smile when he sees her, but hurries to the bed as if she's not there.

"Here. It should be flat enough by now, and warm. My mother swore by this." He sets the glass – Sprite, Pepper assumes – on the table and leans in to help Tony sit up.

Tony milks it for all he's worth, groaning and making Bruce lift him bodily and hurry to get pillows behind him so he can sit back.

Bruce sits down on the edge of the bed, grabbing the glass and holding it up to Tony's mouth as if he's lost the use of his hands.

Tony leans in and sips, sitting back when he's done unsteadily. "Thanks," he says, a ragged whisper.

Pepper rolls her eyes, but Bruce reaches across Tony to the tray and takes up the bowl of soup. "Come on, you promised you'd eat."

She has a whole list of things she needs to tell Bruce, hints about how to use JARVIS to actually determine whether Tony's too warm or cold or sleeping or faking it. Tricks to push Tony into dropping his poor-me act faster than he wants to, and ways to give in to him without encouraging his sloth. She's got a list and she's not scared to go into it with Tony laying right there listening.

But she watches the way Tony looks at Bruce over the bowl of soup, the glow in his eyes as he leans in and sips. The way his face is open and clear and shadowless as Bruce clucks and wipes a drip of soup off his chin with a napkin.

She watches how Bruce focuses on him with every sip like he's an experiment in process. How he reaches up now and then and checks Tony's temperature against the back of his arm the way her mother used to check hers when she was a child. The way he talks to Tony as they get through the bowl of soup, quiet and low and soothing though his words are about electrostatic barriers and electronic anticoincidence and other things she's not sure really exist outside of their brains.

In fact, there's very much that kind of air about them, that the words and the soup and the bed might all exist in some bubble that they've created between them. Tony drags people into his orbit, he's a force of nature who can't be denied. But Bruce fits in that orbit like no one she's ever seen before.

Tony leans in to him as he eats, watching him with a smile that doesn't have a hint of smugness in it. In fact he seems to have completely forgotten that Pepper was ever there. Bruce talks to him and feeds him, brushes his hair out of his face and gives him sprite and drags his thumb up the corner of his mouth to catch a stray drop, just as unaware that there's anyone in the room as Tony is.

They get mostly through that bowl of soup before she finally comes back to herself enough to back up and head out of the room, silent as she can be though she's pretty sure she won't disturb them either way.

There's a pang in her chest – she knew there would be when this moment came, even if she pictured some stunningly beautiful woman being the cause – but she finds herself smiling as she gets back on the elevator and heads back to her office.

She's still got a list of things that Bruce needs to know, but she amends that list greatly in the light of what she's just seen. And for the first time she wonders if the list will even be necessary.

Bruce might not approach Tony with the same attitude as Pepper, but his approach certainly seems to work for both of them.

* * *

FOUR

Clint shuts up a lot, which gives people a lot of wrong ideas about him. He's been assumed to be dumb, to not care about things, to be antisocial or conceited or unfriendly. Whatever. People love conclusions, and they're easily fooled. Natasha likes to talk about that a lot, about how easy it is to make people think you're whatever you want to be seen as.

People are smug dicks, he doesn't much care what people think.

Truth is he's just observant. He likes to watch, to listen, to see and understand things without being told. Maybe that's Tasha's influence, who knows? She's the one that taught him that you have to look between people's expressions and listen around their words to understand them.

He likes perches up high because it's a great way to see a world that doesn't know it's being watched. He shuts up in meetings because he's surrounded by a lot of bombastic talkers who really have to be watched to be understood. He doesn't add his opinion often, usually because someone's already stated something close enough to it that he doesn't have to bother. His job is to sit back and listen.

He understands his teammates. He trusts them, which is a new thing for him. He respects their opinions, which is another good reason to shut up and hear everyone out. He knew back when Stark was getting wasted constantly that he wasn't really out of it. He knew before he asked that Stark and Banner were fucking. It showed in the way their bodies gravitated towards each other when they were in the same room.

And he knows without knowing how that when some guy named Ross shows up at Stark's tower it's a huge problem.

He's there late one evening after the group had one of their little get-togethers. Tony promised to show him some kinda tech he's been working on, some ideas for how to get bugs and cameras and shit into places at the head of one of Clint's arrows. Something that involves break-away shafts or whatever. He isn't sure yet 'cause Stark's been busy with his hot secretary, Potts, and Clint's faded into the woodwork like he does, so he's not sure Stark even remembers he's still around.

He's right there, leaning against a wall in this hallway they've been standing in for like an hour, looking out at nothing, when Stark's computer speaks up.

"_Sir, I hate to interrupt but there's a General Ross downstairs signing in through security." _

He watched Stark jerk like he was jolted by electricity, moving past Potts and going to the elevator without missing a beat. His hands are fists.

He watches Potts cast worried eyes at the door beyond them. The lab. Banner's in there working, Clint remembers. Potts pulls out a cell phone and dials, heading back towards Stark's office and leaving a message for someone named Roadie.

Clint goes to the elevator, watches the panel to see what floor the car stops at, and heads down the stairwell to see what's going on.

The walls in Stark's building are quality, not like some buildings where he could've just stood in the stairwell and heard everything that went on outside of it. Clint actually has to push the door open and head out to look for Stark.

He hears him before he sees him, around a corner on a floor that looks like it's made up of nothing but empty conference rooms.

"-whatever threats you want, I'm telling you right now that you're not going to get up there, you're not going to talk to him, you're not going to lay eyes on him. And if you think you can invade my building like I'm some third world country being too stingy with its oil reserves then I look forward to proving you wronger than you've ever been in your sorry life."

Nice. Stark's voice gets real flat and staccato when he's pissed. He's definitely pissed now.

The voice that answers is an older guy – if he's really a General of course he's older, no doubt white and wrinkled and comfortable not having seen a battle for decades – who sounds amused by Start's threats.

"You misunderstand the situation, Stark. I don't know what Banner has told you, but I am no rogue. I come here with the might of the entire United States Army behind me, and when I say we're going to bring Banner in for an interview, I mean I'm either leaving with him or I'm leaving your entire little empire here in a pile of rubble."

"You think I won't take on the Army?"

"I think you're a spoiled rich debutante," the general answers, drawling and amused but there's steel in there, too. He's pretty determined. "I think without that flashy metal suit of yours you fight like every other spoiled rich debutante, with daddy's money and the company lawyers."

There's a pause. When Stark answers his voice is more controlled. Quieter. Dangerous, but Clint doubts the general can tell that.

"You know, normally you'd be pretty on the nose, though an argument could be made that my money has replaced my father's money ten times over since I took over the business. Basic point, though, that's pretty dead on: I could fight this with lawyers. I could make one phone call and see you buried under so many subpoenas that you'll be lucky if you don't get crushed. See, I hire lawyers like I hire anyone else – the hungrier the better. They love a challenge and I love to indulge them. Taking on the federal government wouldn't even be the most fun they have this week."

Tony pauses, and the general stays silent, and Clint waits, because you don't have to be observant like Clint is to know that there's a big ole 'but' coming.

"But," Tony says finally, with some relish, "I know all about you, General. I know about your daughter, I know about your obsessions. And worst of all for you, I know every last memo and report and summation you've ever given regarding Bruce Banner. So as much as I love keeping things interesting for the lawyers I keep on retainer, I'm going to go ahead and take this personally instead."

The general answers calmly, though he doesn't sound all that amused anymore. "If that's a threat, Mister Stark, then I'd love to call you on it. I'd love to watch your world crumble when the might of the US Army destroys your entire universe. Just bring out that suit of yours and turn it against a US General sent here on official business. Please."

Clint is tempted to go around the corner and catch an eyeful of this little confrontation. It's kinda sexy watching powerful guys bat each other around like cats with mice. Fury does it with that council of his, and they do it right back, and it's pretty damned entertaining.

But it's all pretty pointless, too, because the council has power but Fury has control, so they never really get anywhere. It'll be the same thing here, Clint figures. Stark has money, this general has authority. This day and age, they both count the same. Business runs the world. Stark's more a world power than some Army general is.

They're playing a serious game, testing each other's limits. Clint doesn't figure this general actually planned to leave here with Banner, and Stark knows it. They're feeling each other out. And it's not grave but it's pretty serious all the same.

"You think that uniform gives you some kind of shield against me?" Stark asks, his voice ice cold. "You're still operating on some seven-year-old obsession that I very much doubt your superiors take seriously after all the time and money you've wasted on it. The Hulk project was a failure, and every scientist you've recruited tells you the same thing. How many millions have you spent? How many times have you had to go up in front of guys with more stars on their chest and beg for more time? You're fighting a losing battle, Ross. And you know it. It's the reason you're here making some endgame play that you're not prepared for."

"You don't know the first thing about what I'm prepared to do, Stark."

"I know this: Banner stays. You go. And if I have to get the suit out to make that happen, fine. It won't be hard to paint a picture of a bitter and obsessed general acting outside his authority in a desperate attempt to save his reputation from a failed project. I'll put on the suit, and there's a few other people who will stand with me, and you'll never even get close enough to make Bruce go green. Though if you did, you'd never survive it."

Clint understands a cue when one comes, even one given unknowingly. He steps out into the corridor and leans against the wall in full sight of the general, who sees him and tenses.

Clint doesn't have a metal suit – he's not even in his full leather get-up. His bow is safely out of sight. But he knows how to put on a grave face and threaten a man with his body language, and he doesn't have to be told to pull that out now. A guy's threatening part of his team, and Clint's never had his own team before, so fuck that guy.

The general glares back at him, as if committing him to memory so he can go find out about him later. Clint doesn't give a shit. He looks right back at him.

Stark never even glances back. He stands there, his back to Clint, shoulders tight and arms against his sides. "General," he says, his voice low and poisonous, "get the hell out of my building before I have you removed."

The guy – old and white and soft, Clint was right about that, but mean in the eyes – looks back at Stark. He glares at him, but the fight's over and they all know it. "You're a fool, or you're insane. You're going to risk everything you have, your own life, for one person?"

"For Bruce?" There's no room for doubt in Tony's voice. "That's the least of what I'd risk."

Clint doesn't smile, but he's pretty amused by that. Either Banner's a fucking god in the sack or those two are actually in love. Kinda too bad Tasha's not around to see this – she doesn't believe love exists. It'd be hard to doubt Stark at this moment, though, even for her.

The general turns on his heel as Clint's thinking about it, and when Clint focuses again the elevator doors are shutting, heading to the lobby. Stark opens a cell phone and gives dark orders that if General Ross isn't out of his building ten seconds after the elevator doors open then everyone in his security department is fired.

And then he turns while he shuts his phone, and he flashes a smirk at Clint with no surprise in his eyes. "Banner doesn't need to know this happened."

Clint shrugs. Not his place to talk, is it?

Stark comes up and claps him on the shoulder and heads to the stairwell, maybe needing to sweat out some aggression by jogging up a few dozen flights. Clint lets him go, figuring he'll take the elevator this time around. He doesn't reassure Stark or anything as he goes, but he doesn't figure he needs to.

Talking's not really Clint's thing anyway.

* * *

FIVE

It's been long years since Thor has believed that the only way to tell a man's merits are on a field of battle. He's been forced to grow up a great deal since those younger days, since he glorified war above all else, and considered men to be worthy or lacking solely depending on how well they fought.

These men and this woman that he fights beside now, they are nothing like the warriors of the Æsir. Honor is an afterthought to them, battle is an ugly requirement. They use their minds for more than strategy, they use trickery and Midgardian technology and whatever else they can think of to shorten a fight if they can't simply avert it altogether.

Thor sometimes thinks that he's found a place with this group of Midgardians because they reflect his own new reluctance to fight. On Asgard only Odin seems to appreciate Thor's new-found maturity. His friends still think and talk in terms of the fight being all-important. His allies here, they fight because they must, not because they can.

Still, reluctance for battle aside, there is something about a fight well-fought that gets his blood moving even now that he's no longer so enamored of warfare. The Captain, Rogers, his strategies are as exciting as they are sound. The Iron One has an enthusiasm for the fight that is invigorating, not to be mistaken for the lust for battle but a simple acceptance that if fighting is their only choice then he will fight well and passionately. The Spy and the Archer, they are doubtless two of the bravest souls Thor has come across in the Nine Realms. They have no special armor or magical help, they are simple, fragile humans, but they are scared of nothing and they survive each battle with as many kills as the others. They more than anyone have taught Thor that no simple human should ever be underestimated. And the Green One, he is no warrior in the classic sense. He is more beast than man. Thor doesn't fully understand how this creature springs from the mild doctor, but he comes when needed, and he might not be a classical warrior but Thor is pleased to fight alongside him.

He doesn't judge a man solely by how they fight, but when he fights alongside people it is impossible not to discover something about them from how they fight.

He knows that the Captain dismays when the rules of a fight are broken, when innocents suffer, and so he respects the Captain enough to follow his commands despite being Odinson and subject to no one's laws but Odin's. He knows that the Archer sees much, and so respects his words, rare as they are spoken. The Spy, she fights as one who can see her opponent's moves before he strikes, and so Thor knows to trust her instincts. From the Iron One's enthusiasm in battle Thor knows to value the things he finds joy in away from the battlefield. From the Green One's rage he knows to never trust the doctor's soft words and reluctance to fight for cowardice.

He knows too that should the Spy fall on the field, the Archer's all-seeing vision will tunnel until he has struck every foe in her way until she has found her feet. He knows that the two are close souls, with the kind of knowledge of each other that comes from having fought many different battles side by side.

And he learns during one particularly fierce and scattered battle that the Archer's words were true, that the Iron One and the Green One are bonded to each other as man to wife.

He sees this from a distance, as he calls down lightning to direct at a device that was designed for no good purpose. (He doesn't ask what it does, Midgardian technology is beyond his understanding and not of any real interest to him. The Captain tells him to overload the device and Thor trusts him enough to do so without question.)

He sees from his perch high up, after the lightning has ceased and the device has sparked and died, as the Green One takes a mighty leap and is knocked from midair as a flaming projectile is fired at him. He watches the Green One vanish through the wall of a nearby building, howling in rage and pain.

The Iron One is there before Thor can even grip Mjolnir and take off to aide his fellow. The Iron One blasts through the side of the building, vanishing in and then reappearing seconds later, looking around at the one responsible for the blast. Thor understands (later, of course; he doesn't think about it as the heat of battle goes on around him) that the need to check the safety of the Green One outweighed all other concerns in those moments after he was shot from the air. This isn't the Iron One's normal behavior, and they all know that the Green One is all but indestructible in this form.

But Thor understands the difference between understanding that a friend is safe and seeing it for himself.

It isn't until the Iron One is caught by another projectile that Thor understands that it is more than a matter of friendship. He sees the Iron One grazed by another flaming shot, sees the fires at his hands and feet sputter and go out, and watches him fall.

Thor acts without hesitation, letting Mjolnir carry him to the source of those projections, chasing two humans from inside a machine with a long nose that was the cause of those shots. He deals with the humans with blows from his fist, and lets Mjolnir sing against the metal machine until it is bent and flattened and useless.

When he emerges, he sees that the Green One has emerged from where he fell. He moves as if injured, but he has reached the Iron One's side and there he stands, roaring in challenge should any step forward to threaten his downed friend.

The Green One...from what Thor understands he is not a thinking creature. There is little of the doctor inside of him in this form, like a curse that turns man into monster. He follows instincts alone, acting out of anger and survival and nothing else.

But it must be a different kind of instinct that has him standing over the Iron One as he struggles to push himself off the ground. The Green One looks in all directions, thumping its mighty chest and snarling at every movement. Thor has watched injured animals protecting their young this way.

It's an instinct as deep as survival, as overpowering as rage. It is love.

Thor doesn't understand the intricacies of human relationships, but this is something he knows well. This is as natural as war, as basic as breathing.

It takes Thor and the Captain many minutes to get to the Iron One's side to assist him, since in his rage the Green One seems not to recognize friend from foe. But they get to him as the battle dies around them, and the Captain plucks off the metal head and reveals the man inside, white-skinned and bleeding but wearing a wide smile. The Green One approaches him and stares for a long moment before going back to keeping watch around them.

So much about these people and their world is outside of Thor's understanding, but this is a sight he might see on any realm, in any race. This is the kind of thing that wars are begun over, the kind of feelings that drive men into battle.

Thor knows that there are strange rules about what it's appropriate to discuss openly, so he never says anything about the day or the battle or what he now understands to be true. But he's quite protective of it all the same, and when in future fights he finds the Green One at his side or the Iron One overhead, he makes an extra effort to watch over them.

People are sacred, lives are all worth saving. But those who are loved, they are two souls in one body. When a man sees so much war and death and ugliness, something as noble as that becomes worth some extra protection.

* * *

AND ONE

Maria has worked for SHIELD long enough to understand the rules. There are new ones all the time, of course: the world is a strange and new place every day, new rules have to be created to contain it all. But the basic ones remain the same.

When Fury slaps an actual paper copy of a newspaper into her hand, she knows just from the look on his face that someone's broken a rule.

She opens the paper and sees, front page, full color, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. They are sitting at some dark restaurant – no doubt some place that charges a thousand dollars for a salad, some place where pictures of clientele shouldn't be able to be taken. Their hands are joined across the table, and Stark's got that squint-eyed, smug grin on his face. Banner's head is bowed almost away from the camera, caught in mid-laugh, but there's no mistaking that curly graying hair.

Stark's Mystery Date a Man!, reads the headline, and somehow this is actually the New York Times and not some gossip column. Amazing what people think is news even in a publication like this one.

She looks up at Fury, knowing the look on his face. What counts as gossip to readers around the world is a life-altering event at SHIELD. Two agents can not be compromised this way and still work together, end of story. It's a rule that Maria herself very much believes in. Emotions are a hazard in the feel, a detriment that can be too easily exploited.

This picture in this newspaper means the Avengers are going to have to change forever. It means dividing up the group, finding a way to separate Stark and Banner without losing one or the other of them. It means details and decisions and an endless amount of headaches for Nick Fury, since there's no way Stark is going to make this easy.

Maria sends him a sympathetic look, but hands the paper back silently. Things are how they are, he's just going to have to take on the headache. In the end the Avengers was his call, and Stark was involved against recommendation, which means...well, he brought it on himself.

"Sir?" Phillips speaks up from the door to Fury's office. "You've got a call coming in from Stark."

Fury growled and sat back, waving the agent out. Maria stands, but when he ignores her she decides to stand where she is, curious about how this is going to play out.

Fury slaps the panel to pipe in the call. "God damn it, Stark."

"_Director?_"

It's not Stark's voice.

Fury scowls. "Captain?"

"_Yes, sir. I should let you know that I'm on a speaker phone and there are other people here." _

"Is Stark one of those people?" Fury asks, steel in his voice.

"_No sir. Doctor Banner isn't here either. We're just borrowing his office, we thought it best to leave them out of this conversation." _

Fury nodded once, sharp. "Then you understand what's going to have to happen here."

"_Yes, sir, of course. We figured once the article came out that you would see it and act accordingly." _

Maria was surprised. But not for long.

"_That's why we're calling, Director. We'd appreciate it if you would ignore the situation." _

Fury's eyes went so wide that his patch shifted. "Excuse me, Captain?"

"_We don't feel that any action is necessary at this time, sir. Quite the opposite – we've decided that any attempt to split up the team at this point would be detrimental for all parties." _

"Jesus _fuck_," Fury snarled out, hands clenching into fists on the desk. "Look, Captain..."

"_No, sir."_

"Excuse me?"

Uh oh. That was his dangerous voice.

Captain Rogers didn't sound worried. _"With all respect, Director, you asked me to make this team into a functional unit, and I'm acting on that order right now. I understand SHIELD guidelines regarding relationships. I can't say as I'd argue with it normally. But I could give several good reasons why it would be best to overlook the rule in this one instance." _

Fury let out a slow breath. He looked up at Maria as if appealing for her to translate, because he simply wasn't sure he understood the words right.

She bit back a smile, but it was difficult.

"What reasons, Captain?" Fury asked finally, staring at the display like he wanted to plant a knife into it.

"_Well, sir, the most obvious would be that Mister Stark and Doctor Banner have been together for quite some time, without having the slightest impact on our effectiveness as a team. Second would be that I'm afraid we've all grown somewhat used to each other, to the point where our division might lead to rebellious feelings or actions." _

Fury rolled his eyes. "Is that a threat?"

"_If Banner or Stark go, we all go," _came the flat, level voice of SHIELD's prized former Russian spy.

"_Agreed," _came the unmistakeable voice of Thor. _"In my land we honor the love of two warriors for each other, we don't take steps to separate them. It lacks reason." _

_Lacks reason, _Fury mouthed at Maria, his head shaking. "I did not need this headache today," he muttered, more to her than to anyone listening through the connection.

No agreement came from Hawkeye, but that was no surprise. Romanoff usually spoke for the two of them anyway.

"_You see, sir, I'm in a delicate position here. It seems that in following your orders I've made it impossible to effectively enforce SHIELD guidelines. I really do insist that this matter be left to us." _

Fury drew in a breath and let it out. He looked up at Maria, and when he saw her smile his face shifted into a glare.

For a moment there was silence, and then he cursed and lifted a fisted hand over the panel. "If I get one single hint that this is going to become a problem..."

"_Yes, sir. Understood." _

Fury struck the panel and disconnected the call, and probably a couple of other functions while he was at it. He turned his full annoyance on Maria. "And just what in the hell are you grinning at? Am I missing the humor?"

She tried to calm her expression, with no luck. She backed towards the door, knowing something was probably going to fly across the office in another minute.

"No, sir. No humor at all, sir. I'd just like to take the opportunity to offer my congratulations."

Fury glowered. "For _what?_"

She gestured towards the panel. "It looks like they're finally the team you wanted them to be."

Fury pointed out the door, and she made her escape just as her smile stretched into a grin she couldn't stop.

The man was brilliant at his job, controlling so many unpredictable forces in a way that almost looked easy. But honestly. Maria and a dozen other agents had a running wager on Stark and Banner, and had since they first met on the carrier months ago.

Anyone with any real foresight saw this coming a mile back. Fury must have lost his when he got that patch.

She laughed to herself, though her humor did take a dive when she remembered it wasn't her week in the Tony/Bruce betting pool.

Damn it.


End file.
